Wild highbush cranberry fruit are starting to appear here on time, which is reassuring. This historic native of Maine and Canada actually is a viburnum (Viburnum trilobum). However, it also is commonly called American cranberrybush and, in Maine’s north woods logging camps, the plant was known as “crampbark” because its bark was used in a cooks’ concoction to relieve muscle cramps.
Those luscious-looking fruit are not cranberries; this plant is from the honeysuckle family. Nonetheless, the fruit look like cranberries and, when properly prepared, provide very tasty and tangy jams and sauces.
Henry David Thoreau, describing his travels in Maine’s woods with two companions, reported that, “notwithstanding their seeds, we all three found them equal to the common cranberry.” (Many recipes for highbush cranberry fruit apparently call for removing their seeds first.) (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 21, 2022.)